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Family Feasts for $75 a Week: A Penny-wise Mom Shares Her Recipe for Cutting Hundreds from Your Monthly Food Bill |  | Author: Mary Ostyn
Publisher: Oxmoor House
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $11.53
as of 7/30/2010 18:10 MDT details
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Rating:  78 reviews
Sales Rank: 12319
Media: Paperback
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9 x 7.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0848732960
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.552
EAN: 9780848732967
ASIN: 0848732960
Publication Date: September 1, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
What would you do with an extra $100 each month?
Let 's face it. Staying within a budget these days is a hard act to stick with, especially if you have a family of four or more. When juggling a busy schedule dedicated to school, work, and family activities, convenience has a tendency to overrule thriftiness-and we all know convenience comes at a cost. But if you can master your spending in just one area-your food bill-you will greatly expand your spending options for other, more rewarding areas of your life.
What would you do with more free time in your day?
You 've heard the saying " time is money, " and time well spent can save you big bucks. Learning how to compile grocery lists, compose weekly menu plans, and shop less will not only save money at the register, it will also save you time in the store and in the kitchen. Come to the table prepared to enjoy the feast as you build time-saving skills that will serve you and your family for a lifetime to come.
What would you do with more fun-filled family opportunities?
Saving time and money will not only make you feel good about yourself, it will also give you the greatest spending opportunity of all-more family fun. Whether planning for a special getaway, staycation, or simply a weekly family night, your family is your best investment. With all the time and money you 'll save, you 'll be able to refocus your energies where they matter most-with the ones you love.
Whether you 're overhauling your entire budget or just trying to save a little here and there, making a dent in your grocery bill may seem challenging in today 's market. A typical supermarket trip can easily cost a minimum of $100, and if you 're feeding an average family or larger, that number can soar even higher. What 's a mom on a budget to do?
Family Feasts for $75 a Week to the rescue! Written by blogger mom and penny-pincher extraordinaire Mary Ostyn, who prepares three meals a day for her family of 12 for $800 to $900 a month, this book is stuffed to the gills with Mary's expert, in-the-trenches tips on savvy food shopping, plus 200 delicious recipes for homecooked meals that make the most of economical ingredients. Selected by Good Morning America as one of the best cookbooks of 2009, Family Feasts for $75 a Week offers real-world advice teaches real-world families how to save in more ways than one.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 78
A Great Resource and Tool August 23, 2009
Mary C. Wagner (California)
137 out of 141 found this review helpful
I was all set last night to sit down and write my thorough praises of Mary Ostyn's new book, Family Feasts for $75 a Week, when my husband blithely reviewed the book better than I could have in pages with one sentence:
As I sat cackling over the money I've saved since reading a pre-publication copy of this book a month ago I said to Ryan, "I can't believe how much money we've saved this month! I've cut our budget by 50% and I think I could easily go lower if we needed to." To which he replied, "That's insane, because we have been eating really well recently, too!" High praise coming from a man whose own mother (an amazing cook) dubbed him The Food Diva several years back when he commented on the amount of carrots she'd used in a favorite dish of his when we were home visiting for Christmas.
In case you aren't already heading out to order a copy of the book based just on that, let me elaborate just a little. Because if you're anything like me you might be thinking, "Come on, seriously. Do we really need another book on how to save money on groceries and inexpensive recipes to feed our families? How many tater-tot casseroles with cheese whiz and Ritz cracker toppings can a girl try?"
If that's you, I'm with yah sister. But let me just mention a couple of things.
1. Delicious Recipes Suited to Any Skill Level: While Mary DOES mention tater tots once in her book it is only to tell you how much better homemade fries are. Not only that, but she upgrades the oven fries with her own homemade Ethiopian seasoning mix (and provides several other easy suggestions for seasonings if a mouth on fire is not your particular version of tasty). And all joking about those spuds aside, her recipes are seriously good, seriously easy and seriously cost effective.
In particular I must recommend her Thai chicken curry dish for which you can make your own curry paste and even your own coconut milk if you don't have a can on hand but do have some shaved coconut in the freezer. Another favorite already is her suggested recipe for making your own granola cereal. (As I stood at the counter breaking up my first batch, chest swelled with pride, my husband gave me a smooch and seriously appreciative squeeze and raved about how amazing it was that I could make something like that all on my own. Sorry, Mary, I took that compliment for my own and didn't re-mention the fact that I'd learned it from the book.)
2. Flexible Ideas on Cost Cutting that Allow You to Create Your Own Plan: One of the frustrating things about many books like these is that, in order for the system to work, you have to change a million things all at once and after about two weeks (for the very strong and enduring, perhaps three), the whole thing goes out the window because it's just too hard to maintain so much change all at once. Mary, however, is very clear about her desire for readers not to make this mistake. Instead you're given four areas in which you can assess your strengths and weaknesses and then a ton of ideas to choose from in each of those areas to begin the process. This book's plan is laid out like an a la carte menu of great ideas that you can tailor fit to your needs and your money-saving goals.
I hate to admit it but I'm the queen of starting strong, getting over my head, and fizzling out completely on things. This is something I dislike about myself and have been working hard to overcome. But ladies, this process has been seriously painless so far and the benefits have far outweighed the effort. Oh and another thing? You don't have to use coupons! (But you can if you need to do penance or something.)
3. An Easy and Interesting Read that Gets Right Down to the Issues and Lets You Start Saving Almost Immediately: I got this book on a Sunday. Inspired, I refused to go to the grocery store until Wednesday because I could see in my own kitchen several different great meals I could already make with things I had in the house. During that time I was able to use small portions of my time each day to figure out what changes I could make, lay out my plan, and embark. Holding on to just a few of the ideas I'd found in the book I set out my first week and was delighted with every grocery receipt I collected because I knew I was making wiser decisions already.
I am torn between a desire to be completely honest about improvements to our grocery budget because it's so amazing and wanting to hide from shame about how easily I have saved so much in my first month of using Family Feasts for $75 a Week. I have literally saved several hundred dollars this month. I thought at first that I was unique in how much waste was happening in our home but a few conversations with friends let me know that I am certainly not alone. Some of my joking, if I'm honest, is to distract from the fact that it was painful to realize just how much room for improvement there was. I found myself in tears at one point as I worked through my new budgeting plan and list of easy changes - it was a mixture of regret over the waste I could now see over the last 5 years of my marriage and relief to have found in Mary's advice a workable, helpful and thorough means by which to improve so drastically.
In Titus 2, Paul admonishes older women to come alongside younger women and, among many other important things, train them in the ways of their home. Mary has shared the resulting wisdom of years of experience, trial, error and success in this new book and it's a fantastic boon to those of us who still have a lot of learning to do. In future I plan on giving this book for wedding shower presents so that my friends can start out ahead of the game in feeding their families well on a frugal but flexible budget.
I could not recommend Family Feasts for $75 a Week more highly.
I Never Would've Guessed I'd Read a Cookbook to Relax! September 1, 2009
M. Carroll (KS, USA)
37 out of 37 found this review helpful
I can't even describe how much I like this book!! I had heard about it, but had no plans to buy it. Then, about ten days ago, I was in Barnes and Noble and the cover caught my eye. I grabbed it and bought it... a total impulse buy (yes, ironic that I impulse-bought a book on frugality! :)). This is definitely one of the best impulse buys I've ever made!
I read - quickly and easily - through the chapters on grocery shopping and then started reading through some of Mary's recipes. The thing I LOVE about them? They all use such spectacularly ordinary ingredients and they're delicious! The first one I tried was her recipe for granola. I'd never actually made my own granola, always turned off by the cost and specialty of the ingredients used (wheat germ is not a staple in our house, e.g.)... The granola recipe in this book turned out great and I used only things that I already had on hand (AND I didn't have to make any substitutions).
Shortly thereafter, I made the eggy breakfast muffins, as I was in search of a substantial, quick breakfast that wasn't loaded with carbs. Not only are these relatively inexpensive (they cost less than a pre-fab equivalent and are better for you), they are ... wow! flavorful and satisfying!! If you cut the bacon out of them for a vegetarian version, they'd be even cheaper and probably (almost) as good. :)
Skimming over some of the other recipes, I saw one for blueberry muffins. I almost skipped right past it, since I'm always hesitant to use fresh blueberries (even if they taste delicious), because - in my experience - they're so expensive and spoil so quickly if you don't use them right when they're ripe. To my delight, I realized that her recipe called for blueberry YOGURT! What a genius idea! She adds that if you want more blueberry to the bite, you can add frozen blueberries.
Yes, I dearly love this cookbook. It goes in my top ten best purchases ever. :)
This book will change your life! September 3, 2009
Beth aka Green Thumb Mama (Idaho, USA)
30 out of 30 found this review helpful
My first step in learning to be more frugal with our grocery spending was learning to bake more from scratch, have a garden, and preserve the produce. My second step was getting Mary's newest book "Family Feasts for $75 a Week".
It's not just a recipe book, although there are lots of yummy recipes. It's a guide to shopping and living more frugally. In this book, Mary goes into great detail how she shops, how she keeps track of prices, and how she meal plans. She includes hints and tips to keep costs down from eliminating or cutting down on convenience foods, to trying new things from scratch. I have to say, I thought I was doing ok in this department, but now that I've been applying her techniques for meal planning, looking for deals, keeping track of prices in a price book and just generally taking the time to shop around, our food budget has changed dramatically.
Using Mary's Two Times Five meal planner (pg 64) to plan meals for 2 weeks, armed with sale pages, the new knowledge I gained from her on what good prices for meat and other groceries are and how to check prices per unit, I headed out to 2 grocery stores yesterday with my kids. I took her approach to having my kids in the store with me - making them seek out the best deals right along with me. I taught my kids how to look at the price tags for price per unit and it became a treasure hunt for who could find the best deals on what we sought to buy! I had my calculator with me and we recorded every food item. I was on a budget; determined to stay within it!
At one store, as per their sale flyer, I got lean ground beef for $1.68 a pound! I bought enough for the next month. They were also selling chicken thighs and legs for $.79 a pound and I bought one of each for the crockpot for chicken tacos. I should be able to get 2 meals from those chicken packages. I also found cheddar cheese for $4.99 for 2 pounds. They also had a coupon for the sandwich meats we like, buy one get one free. At that store, I bought chicken, cheese, ground beef, onions ($.49/lb)and sandwich meat for the month for a total of $47.63.
At the next store, we bought all the rest of our groceries. We stayed closely to our list. We bought 2 items not on the list because I had forgotten to write them down. There were sales all over the place and we got 2 weeks worth of groceries for breakfast, lunches and dinners for $99.89!
Total for 2 weeks? $147.52. The only thing one of the stores was out of was the breakfast sausage we like. So I'll have to make a trip to get that later this week. Considering the fact that I bought enough meat to last the month, I think I'm way under budget for the month even! There is NO WAY I could have done this without help. We did not have to cut out anything we needed! The fact that we were practically under budget was a miracle.
Struggling to be frugal? Don't have the first clue how to shop for deals? Clueless about how to organize and store the food you buy? Needing some new, low cost meal ideas? Here's my advice:
1. Get Mary's book. It will change your life.
2. Put forth the effort to meal plan and stick to it.
3. Set a goal and attempt to meet it.
4. Take her $75 a week challenge!!
I guarantee, you will not be sorry!
Looking to Save Money? Or Return to the Kitchen? Try This. September 10, 2009
Jennifer Donovan (Connecticut, USA)
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
This book title sums it up well. This is not just a book of cost-cutting methods (in fact, she doesn't even use coupons!). The idea of saving on your monthly "food bill," challenges the reader to look at all places were money is spent on food, including trips to the coffee shop, fast food, and eating out.
The book is 1/3 narrative about her money-saving habits, and 2/3 recipes, since cooking -- and cooking from scratch for the most part -- is the way to serve up family feasts that are affordable.
Mary Ostyn says that she is confident that most people could save $100 a month by making most of the changes she suggests, but she challenges each reader to set her own goal, and to make changes gradually so that they will stick.
If you don't like to cook, or don't feel like you can cook well, don't be intimidated by these recipes. Although most are from scratch -- not using expensive and over-processed products -- they are fairly accessible to even a beginner cook. In fact, this would be a great gift to give to a young person setting up a kitchen for the first time living on his or her own.
Some people might balk at some of the international recipes that she shares, but she encourages you to give them a try, since these recipes generally rely on things other than meat to give them flavor.
I've only tried one of the recipes so far -- the Spinach Fritatta -- and it was delicious (eaten even by my 11-year-old who balked at the spinach). However, I have tried a lot of recipes in my lifetime, and generally know when one will succeed, or if it's not something that is easy enough to make on a regular basis, and the other recipes that I marked to try soon are sure to be a success as well.
Very good Cookbook-- Lots of helpful advice for saving money December 9, 2009
Michelle (Ohio United States)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
I have read Owlhaven off and on for years and it was Mary's cookbook that finally got me to leave a comment on her blog. The book is an excellent primer on how to cook economically for a family. Really and truly excellent.
I've been reading frugal cookbooks for a few months now and this is the best one I've found. Lets take it chapter by chapter, at least for the first 4 chapters, shall we?
Before we start, I want to point out each chapter ends with a checklist of action items that gives you organized marching orders.Family Feasts is not messing around and will truly help you get serious about saving money on groceries.
Chapter 1 sets the rationale and asks what you would do with an extra $100. To which I say, Mary, I need an extra $500 a month, but I guess we all have to start somewhere. There's a quiz at the end of the first chapter that will help you identify your frugal strengths and weaknesses. The score also tells you which parts of the book will likely be the most helpful for you--which is kind of neat and provides a customized reading experience tailored to your needs.
Chapter 2 is full of basic shopping information. Even though I know most of it, the lists are great in this chapter. There's a pantry list and a list of seasonal veggies and fruits. Each aisle of the grocery store is broken down and dissected until you know exactly where to save money. This would be an excellent chapter for someone out on their own for the first time.
Chapter 3 introduces what Mary calls 'Guerilla Shopping'. Here she gets into the nitty gritty of keeping a price book, sales and coupons. Her gradual approach on the price book is appreciated because I've been avoiding this chore for a long time, overwhelmed by the sheer size of the task. I also like her stance on coupons which is, they aren't all that great unless you like to eat highly processed food full of sugar and fat. Whole foods don't usually have coupons so health conscious eaters shouldn't worry too much about coupons.
Chapter 4 delves into meal planning and the logistics of food prep. There is a hold-your-hand process for meal planning in this chapter. If you are lost when it comes to making a menu, this chapter will help you beyond your wildest dreams.
After the fourth chapter we get into recipes and my only criticism of the book, which is the use of lemon/lime soda in a handful of recipes as well as the use of corn syrup. Those particular recipes can be easily modified or avoided, but I was a little surprised to see such chemically laden bad-for-you items serving as base ingredients in a recipe. Also, pictures of each recipe would have been great.
On the positive, Mary includes a world of flavors in her recipes. There's Korean and Ethiopian food alongside American favorites.I happen to really like Ethiopian food and look forward to trying some of those recipes.
Here are some of the recipes I want to try after reading this book.
Mary's granola
Cream cheese Pinwheels
Chicken and Apple sandwiches with melted cheese
Spicy Chicken Enchiladas
Pork Chops with Apricot Sauce
Spinach Frittata
Korean Barbecued Beef
Spicy Ethiopian Beef in Green Pepper
Ethiopian Sloppy Joes
Orange Chicken
Chicken Cacciatore
Slow cooker white chicken chili
Southwest Beef Chili
Chinese chicken salad
Thai beef salad
Southern Style Fresh Cabbage Salad
6 week bran muffins
Soft rich brownies
Baked chicken Kiev
Stuffed French Toast Strata
Ginger and orange glazed baby carrots
Asian Ginger Dressing
Slow cooker white bean, sage, sausage soup
Showing reviews 1-5 of 78
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